Snow Falling on Salt Water

It snowed yesterday afternoon and evening, a rarity at sea level here. The roads were nasty enough that our plan to meet friends for dinner at the Green Olive was abandoned. Instead, we trudged through the wind and falling snow to the Black Dog Cafe, the social and cultural hub of the Lantzville Metroplex. They were having (hopefully) a dinner concert featuring Celtic Chaos. The dinner guests and the band were undeterred by the weather and slowly drifted in. The 3 band members played these instruments:
* man #1 - accordion
* man #2 - flute (and penny whistle once)
* girl - cello (and banjo once)
A 4th band member (fiddle) watched from the crowd, nursing her broken wrist.

The accordion player complained about people who would come up at the end of the typical performance to share their favorite accordion jokes with him. Recently his hopes were raised in a similar post-concert encounter. The gentleman came up to him afterward with a penny whistle joke, which goes like this:
Gentleman: "What do you call a tepee-like configuration of penny whistles?"
Accordion player with hopes raised: "I don't know. What?"
Gentleman: "Kindling for an accordion fire."

After being fed and entertained, we walked home through the still active storm. On the way, we detoured to the end of Sebastion Road to witness the storm-driven waves crash on the rocks. It was quite dramatic - magical, but not inviting. We didn't scurry home to get the kayak.

In fact, kayaking is likely over for the season. We leave for North Idaho a week from tomorrow or soon thereafter, using the first opportunity to traverse Snoqualmie Pass without snow tires.

Richard
2007.12.02